When does O-Club SBC award get applied?

[NewSalty]

We're fairly new to Oceania, not quite bronze level yet. Booked a cruise on board our current cruise, and noticed that the bronze level $100 SBC was automatically applied to that cruise. It makes some sense as that cruise (if we take it) will definitely put us at the bronze level... But we also have enough cruises booked before that one such that we will actually be silver level by then. 

This was, however, actually a fairly screwy rebooking, so this may not be the usual process. So my question to you O veterans is this: How and when do the O-Club SBC dollars usually get applied?

[Vallesan]

The ‘benefits’ of the new cruise level are applied when you sail ie. bronze goes to silver when you sail on your 10th cruise not on your 11th if that makes sense!

[bradpole]

40 minutes ago, NewSalty said:

We're fairly new to Oceania, not quite bronze level yet. Booked a cruise on board our current cruise, and noticed that the bronze level $100 SBC was automatically applied to that cruise. It makes some sense as that cruise (if we take it) will definitely put us at the bronze level... But we also have enough cruises booked before that one such that we will actually be silver level by then. 

This was, however, actually a fairly screwy rebooking, so this may not be the usual process. So my question to you O veterans is this: How and when do the O-Club SBC dollars usually get applied?

I'll give you our experience... Our May cruise we turned Silver, a couple of weeks prior to sailing it still showed Bronze and $100 credit.  I had to call to ask to something else and inquired about the change to Silver and the $250 credit and they saw it on their end, including the pre-paid gratuities. They sent me a new invoice confirming the increased credit and gratuities.  I just logged into the website and our upcoming September cruise (booked a long time ago) still shows the Bronze level benefits.  The same goes for a cruise early next year, Bronze, and booked a while ago.  A cruise later in the year next year does show the Silver level benefits.  That cruise was booked after completing our last Bronze cruise, but before starting our first Silver cruise.  

 

So in summary, it seems bookings made after you complete a level will reflect the new level, but existing bookings don't change on the website.  

[mountain grandma]

The $100 credit that was applied to the cruise immediately was not your O Club SBC but rather the booking bonus that everyone gets when you made an on board booking.  You have the choice of either applying it to your cruise that you are currently sailing on or applying it to the new cruise that you just booked.  
 

Your SBC for O Club should appear on your invoice but sometimes the computer system doesn’t catch the change.  A telephone call to O should solve the situation and for sure it should be applied correctly by the time you board.  

[ORV]

1 hour ago, mountain grandma said:

The $100 credit that was applied to the cruise immediately was not your O Club SBC but rather the booking bonus that everyone gets when you made an on board booking.  You have the choice of either applying it to your cruise that you are currently sailing on or applying it to the new cruise that you just booked.  
 

Your SBC for O Club should appear on your invoice but sometimes the computer system doesn’t catch the change.  A telephone call to O should solve the situation and for sure it should be applied correctly by the time you board.  

If the OPs invoice says Oceania Club Bronze Shipboard Credit $100  then that is what it's for. 

The onboard booking amount might easily be more than $100. On that line it clearly says what I posted below. This is from one of my invoices for an upcoming cruise. Just an FYI, on my invoice they both were applied immediately. Without seeing their invoice it's hard to say. 

 

US$250 Onboard Booking Shipboard Credit Offer 2V+ *

[ORV]

Actually I just double checked my original invoices from the FCC that booked our last two cruises onboard generated and neither one of them show the OBC for booking onboard, but they do show my Oceania Club Level amenity. In both instances I've had to ask our TA to generate a new invoice that has the amenity for booking onboard added to it. 

 

Perhaps it's not on the original one because you have the choice to take it on the cruise you're on or the future cruise you book. 

Edited August 20 by ORV

[EJL2023]

10 minutes ago, ORV said:

Actually I just double checked my original invoices from the FCC that booked our last two cruises onboard generated and neither one of them show the OBC for booking onboard, but they do show my Oceania Club Level amenity. In both instances I've had to ask our TA to generate a new invoice that has the amenity for booking onboard added to it. 

 

Perhaps it's not on the original one because you have the choice to take it on the cruise you're on or the future cruise you book. 

Same with ours.  Did not show in original invoice but did show up under the View Credits on our Online Account. Same with the AMEX. 

[NewSalty]

4 hours ago, mountain grandma said:

The $100 credit that was applied to the cruise immediately was not your O Club SBC but rather the booking bonus that everyone gets when you made an on board booking.  You have the choice of either applying it to your cruise that you are currently sailing on or applying it to the new cruise that you just booked.  
 

Your SBC for O Club should appear on your invoice but sometimes the computer system doesn’t catch the change.  A telephone call to O should solve the situation and for sure it should be applied correctly by the time you board.  

No, it was in addition to the the $250 onboard credit, and was labeled as Bronze level SBC.

[no fuss travel]

You receive the benefit when you will earn it on the cruise you are taking.  For example when we took our last ATW, we were shown as God, but the day we boarded the ship, we became Platinum and received the Platinum benefits for the cruise.  Before we boarded the ship we had 19 cruise credits, after the ATW we had 34 cruise credits.  Oceania gives you the benefit the moment you board the cruise that you will earn the credit.

[Woofa]

37 minutes ago, no fuss travel said:

You receive the benefit when you will earn it on the cruise you are taking.  For example when we took our last ATW, we were shown as God, but the day we boarded the ship, we became Platinum and received the Platinum benefits for the cruise.  Before we boarded the ship we had 19 cruise credits, after the ATW we had 34 cruise credits.  Oceania gives you the benefit the moment you board the cruise that you will earn the credit.

What a letdown to go from God to merely platinum.😚

[no fuss travel]

37 minutes ago, Woofa said:

What a letdown to go from God to merely platinum.😚

Darn that autocorrect   It got me again.  Lol

[NewSalty]

On 8/21/2024 at 12:08 AM, no fuss travel said:

You receive the benefit when you will earn it on the cruise you are taking.  For example when we took our last ATW, we were shown as God, but the day we boarded the ship, we became Platinum and received the Platinum benefits for the cruise.  Before we boarded the ship we had 19 cruise credits, after the ATW we had 34 cruise credits.  Oceania gives you the benefit the moment you board the cruise that you will earn the credit.

Well, in our case, they gave us is the bronze benefit on a cruise that is close to a year away. 

My takeaway from the mish-mash of answers above is that the process is somewhat irregular. Careful monitoring seems to be the order of the day. (One more thing to keep track of!)

[willidc]

5 hours ago, NewSalty said:

Well, in our case, they gave us is the bronze benefit on a cruise that is close to a year away. 

My takeaway from the mish-mash of answers above is that the process is somewhat irregular. Careful monitoring seems to be the order of the day. (One more thing to keep track of!)

We were on our 22nd cruise and our invoice from an early booking date still showed 19 Gold.  As your experience is rather common on invoices and website, from our experience on all previous levels, we have been treated to the appropriate level of OBC for loyalty in all cases with notification cards on the desk in our stateroom upon boarding.  Never an issue. 

 

I once questioned this confusion on invoices prior to boarding and was told that we officially are on the next loyalty level when we "set foot on the ship".  Since we have never had an issue automatically getting the appropriate perk once on the ship, we now just  ignore what is on a usual and somewhat dated invoice.  

 

Enjoy your cruise!

Edited August 22 by willidc
typo

[Vallesan]

17 minutes ago, willidc said:

We were on our 22nd cruise and our invoice from an early booking date still showed 19 Gold.  As your experience is rather common on invoices and website, from our experience on all previous levels, we have been treated to the appropriate level of OBC for loyalty in all cases with notification cards on the desk in our stateroom upon boarding.  Never an issue. 

 

I once questioned this confusion on invoices prior to boarding and was told that we officially are on the next loyalty level when we "set foot on the ship".  Since we have never had an issue automatically getting the appropriate perk once on the ship, we now just  ignore what is on a usual and somewhat dated invoice.  

 

Enjoy your cruise!

Your experience mirrors ours. We had to cancel the cruise that should have taken us from bronze to silver. Despite having paid in full for this cruise we were still classed as bronze until we actually ‘set foot’ on our 10th/silver cruise.

[NewSalty]

1 hour ago, Vallesan said:

Your experience mirrors ours. We had to cancel the cruise that should have taken us from bronze to silver. Despite having paid in full for this cruise we were still classed as bronze until we actually ‘set foot’ on our 10th/silver cruise.

So it would seem that receiving that $100 bronze level award before the cruise is an anomaly?  It does show up on the website, and is available to use for pre -cruise purchases.  But I worry that using it may preclude it from being upgraded to the silver level award that it should be by that time. 

[basor]

You can go ahead and use your Bronze award snd when you step on board you will find you have the difference between the Bronze award and the Silver award in your account to use onboard...they do not upgrade your status until you step onboard the ship .  If something happened and you did not take the cruise, you would still be bronze until you actually take the next cruise.

We are on a B2B2B and the last segment we will level up so our status will be the same for cruise 1 and 2 and when cruise 3 starts, our status will be updated and we will see additional perks

[Vallesan]

21 minutes ago, NewSalty said:

So it would seem that receiving that $100 bronze level award before the cruise is an anomaly?  It does show up on the website, and is available to use for pre -cruise purchases.  But I worry that using it may preclude it from being upgraded to the silver level award that it should be by that time. 

Sorry you have lost me! Why not wait until you board to then get the benefit of the silver level?

[scvgirl]

To complicate things further, my question is this:  You mention that in order to become Silver, you need to complete 10 cruises.  However, it appears on their website that it is 10 cruises (credits) or 100-157 days.  We will reach over 100 days before 10 cruises and I assume we become Silver at any time after 100 days?

[osandomir]

It doesn’t really matter when the benefits are applied. If you pay for some excursions out of pocket pre-cruise when onboard your loyalty benefits will be applied to your account so the portion that you paid in cash will become a refundable OBC. You will be able to get it back at the end of the cruise if it’s not used.

[basor]

18 minutes ago, scvgirl said:

To complicate things further, my question is this:  You mention that in order to become Silver, you need to complete 10 cruises.  However, it appears on their website that it is 10 cruises (credits) or 100-157 days.  We will reach over 100 days before 10 cruises and I assume we become Silver at any time after 100 days?

It can be confusing but the chart you are referencing is telling you how many cruise credits you receive for the length of the sailing - for your example, if you take a cruise that is 100 - 157 days in length, you will receive 10 credits.  If your cruise is 24 days or less, than you receive 1 cruise credit.  So it is possible to have sailed more than 100 days but not have the 10 cruise credits needed to be Silver....many of our cruises have been 20-23 days long so our cruise credits are much less than days sailed,...I hope this clarifies

[scvgirl]

5 minutes ago, basor said:

It can be confusing but the chart you are referencing is telling you how many cruise credits you receive for the length of the sailing - for your example, if you take a cruise that is 100 - 157 days in length, you will receive 10 credits.  If your cruise is 24 days or less, than you receive 1 cruise credit.  So it is possible to have sailed more than 100 days but not have the 10 cruise credits needed to be Silver....many of our cruises have been 20-23 days long so our cruise credits are much less than days sailed,...I hope this clarifies

So, we will reach 107 days on our 8th cruise - will we become Silver on that 8th cruise?  We actually booked a back-to-back, so the second leg of 14 days will be our 9th, unless they determine that a back-to-back is 1 cruise.  Sorry to bother.

[basor]

2 minutes ago, scvgirl said:

So, we will reach 107 days on our 8th cruise - will we become Silver on that 8th cruise?  We actually booked a back-to-back, so the second leg of 14 days will be our 9th, unless they determine that a back-to-back is 1 cruise.  Sorry to bother.

When you log into your account on O webpage and click on "My Account overview" you will find "Oceania Club".  when you click on that it will tell you how many cruise credits you have and will show all of the Oceania cruises you have taken.  As I said, the number of days you have sailed has nothing to do with what your Oceania Club level is....that is simply telling you that IF you sail on a cruise that is 100 - 157 days long you will receive 10 credits.  I think you will find your answer on your account page on Oceania Website...

 

Here is a sample of what you will see...

 

You have 23 Cruise Credit(s)

 

You need 17 more credit to reach Diamond Status

[scvgirl]

1 hour ago, basor said:

When you log into your account on O webpage and click on "My Account overview" you will find "Oceania Club".  when you click on that it will tell you how many cruise credits you have and will show all of the Oceania cruises you have taken.  As I said, the number of days you have sailed has nothing to do with what your Oceania Club level is....that is simply telling you that IF you sail on a cruise that is 100 - 157 days long you will receive 10 credits.  I think you will find your answer on your account page on Oceania Website...

 

Here is a sample of what you will see...

 

You have 23 Cruise Credit(s)

 

You need 17 more credit to reach Diamond Status

Appreciate your help.  We don't have any intensions of sailing on a 100+ day cruise, so I guess we will need to sail on 10 cruises in order to qualify.

[basor]

1 minute ago, scvgirl said:

Appreciate your help.  We don't have any intensions of sailing on a 100+ day cruise, so I guess we will need to sail on 10 cruises in order to qualify.

Not necessarily - if you look at the other options on the same page 

 

1 CREDIT up to 24 days

2 CREDITS 25-34 days

3 CREDITS 35-44 days

4 CREDITS 45-54 days

5 CREDITS 55-64 days

7 CREDITS 65-99 days

10 CREDITS 100-157 days

15 CREDITS 158+ days

 

[scvgirl]

3 minutes ago, basor said:

Not necessarily - if you look at the other options on the same page 

 

1 CREDIT up to 24 days

2 CREDITS 25-34 days

3 CREDITS 35-44 days

4 CREDITS 45-54 days

5 CREDITS 55-64 days

7 CREDITS 65-99 days

10 CREDITS 100-157 days

15 CREDITS 158+ days

 

That is the chart I was referring to.  We will be sailing on our 8th cruise at 107 days and our 9th at 121 days when complete.  But we will not yet reach 10 cruises.